graham appeared to give wriggle room with revenue or reform to the tax code. >> he did. and then speaker boehner does the opposite and so the challenge here is, who are you negotiating with? i think part of the smart strategy in terms of the white house and what they're doing is, listen, if we can't negotiate with the leadership and it's clearly not been very productive, let's try to negotiate with the rank and file members and see where there's common ground and then build momentum from the bottom up on the leaders. >> april, real quick. i want to read what john dickerson of "slate" and saying early in his first term, he, meaning the president, reached out to senators grassley, snowe, collins and specter in the negotiations and tried a back room deal to secure the support of nebraska senator ben nelson. while obama may not be very good at trying to work congress, he may only have done it in fits and starts but you can't say he hasn't tried. so that's the focus of trying with republicans. has he done the same with democrats, april? >> democrats are saying that they are n